Local Editor

Saudi-led air strikes and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas in Yemen’s Taiz on Wednesday killed up to 22 people and wounded 140 others, the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] said in a statement, citing local hospitals.

Thee head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen, Antoine Grand, was quoted as saying that, "The situation in Taiz is particularly dire, even by the standards of the appalling conditions all over Yemen, with the nearly half of the hospitals closed and streams of wounded people desperate for treatment".

Thousands have fled and those left behind face severe shortages in water, food and electricity. 

Grand further said that the ICRC had been trying for five weeks to obtain authorization to deliver urgent medicines to one hospital in Taiz.

Also on Thursday, a resident in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah said that Saudi-led coalition planes had bombed a small island in the Red Sea close to the port of Midi, killing 10 fishermen.

"They took the bodies back to the harbor. Some others were wounded but we don’t know how many", the resident said on condition of anonymity.

Air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition have struck civilian targets on at least four different occasions in recent weeks, including a wedding party on Sept. 28 that killed up to 131 people.

A Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States began to launch a military aggression on Yemen by carrying out airstrikes against the country since March 26. The airstrikes have not been authorized by the United Nations [UN].